1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming apparatuses that install a colorless clear toner or spot color inks such as while, gold, and silver in addition to the toners of four colors of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) thereon so as to form an image on a recoding medium such as transfer paper, control gloss or control the image quality have actively been developed in these years.
Additionally, application software for editing the image data to be output to such an image forming apparatus has also been developed. For example, there is application software (a spot color object editing application) that draws, places, or edits an object to be printed with the spot color inks, for example, in an image file in Portable Document Format (PDF) or another format.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2013-219697 discloses a technique that implements an image that an user desires by designating which area to prioritize when areas in which the clear toner is used overlap, for example, the overlap of an area in which a transparent image is formed, and an area in which a surface effect such as a glossy tone is given.
By the way, some image forming apparatuses compatible with the spot color inks can install only a spot color ink. Such image forming apparatuses fail to print spot color objects in a plurality of colors simultaneously. Thus, it is conventionally necessary to separately perform the print process for each spot color object by designating the spot color object one by one and then setting a spot color toner corresponding to the spot color object when the image file includes spot color objects in two colors or more. Thus, a more efficient printing process has been required.
In light of the foregoing, there is a need to provide an information processing apparatus, information processing method, and a computer program product that can efficiently print an image including spot color objects in a plurality of colors in an image forming apparatus that can perform spot color printing only in one spot color at one time.